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Statoil marks gas pipeline milestone

Norwegian energy company Statoil starts process of laying a gas pipeline across the Arctic Circle to onshore processing terminal. Image courtesy: Statoil STAVANGER, Norway, March 27 (UPI) — Norwegian energy company Statoil said Friday it started the pioneering project of laying gas pipeline across the arctic waters of the Norwegian Sea. The company started the process of laying the 300-mile long Polarled pipeline from the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea across the Arctic Circle to a gas processing plant in the northwest of the country. Statoil said the project marks a regional milestone on several fronts . It’s the first large-diameter pipeline of its kind to be placed in waters of up to 4,150 feet deep and is the first pipeline to take gas across the Arctic Circle. "Polarled will have great and strategic impact on the future development of the region," Jan Heiberg, acting director of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The Problem of the Human Population

However, there is concern for decades that in a finite world at some point should be the limits of the world’s population, and that may not be very smart to reach those limits. Although efforts to limit population growth in some countries like India or China, today these efforts have been abandoned or are abandoning were made in the second half of the twentieth century, mainly due to the pace of population growth is declining alone globally. As in all matters based on the laws of nature, we can use science to analyze the problem of the human population. The science that helps us in this case is ecology, which has a specific branch of human ecology . Anyone who thinks that we do not apply the laws of biology, is that it has lost touch with the reality of human nature. For very rational to presume to be, […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Heinberg: AFTERBURN Society Beyond Fossil Fuels

Heinberg: AFTERBURN Society Beyond Fossil Fuels thumbnail The advent of fossil fuels changed the world profoundly (giving us everything from plastics and automobiles to global warming); the inevitable and rapidly approaching end of the oil-coal-and-gas era will likewise bring overwhelming transformation in its wake. My new book Afterburn explores that transformation—its opportunities and challenges—in sixteen essays that address subjects as varied as energy politics, consumerism, localism, the importance of libraries, and oil price volatility. Afterburn is a book of “greatest hits”—that is, popular essays that have been previously published—similar in that respect to an earlier book of mine, Peak Everything (2007). Like that previous collection, this one has been carefully selected and arranged, and features an all-new Introduction. Here are just a few of the highlights: “Ten Years After” reviews the debate about “peak oil” from the perspective of over a decade’s work in tracking petroleum forecasts, prices, and […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Yemen fuels short-covering rally in oil

LONDON (Reuters) – Air strikes by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen have sparked a modest rise in oil prices of $3 per barrel, even though Yemen plays a marginal role in the global oil market. Yemen produces just 130,000 barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), about 0.1 percent of global production and the same as Italy or Kansas. The country shares a long border with southwest Saudi Arabia but violence in that area poses no threat to the main Saudi oilfields, which are concentrated in the northeast of the kingdom. More significantly, Yemen forms one coastline of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. On average almost 4 million barrels of oil pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait every day en route from the main Gulf oilfields to refineries in the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil prices ease as market downplays supply threat from Yemen

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices fell over a percentage point on Friday as traders estimated that the threat of a disruption to world crude supplies from Saudi Arabia-led air strikes in Yemen was low. Goldman Sachs said in an overnight note that the strikes in Yemen would have little effect on oil supplies as the country was only a small crude exporter and tankers could avoid passing its waters to reach their ports of destination. Internationally traded Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading at $58.44 a barrel at 0211 GMT, down 75 cents from their last settlement. U.S. crude CLc1 was down 88 cents at $50.55 a barrel. Prices soared as much as 6 percent the previous day after a Saudi-led coalition of Arab nations began strikes on Shi’ite Houthis and allied army units who have taken over much of Yemen and seek to oust President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil price surges as Saudis launch air strikes in Yemen

Yemenis search for survivors on Thursday after an air strike near Sana’a airport The price of oil rose on Thursday as Saudi jets bombed Houthi rebels in the Yemeni capital, raising fears that the civil conflict in the Gulf state could escalate into a regional war. Saudi Arabia, backed by a 10-country Sunni coalition, launched the air strikes early on Thursday against targets in Houthi-controlled Sana’a, including the airport and a military air base. The Houthis responded by firing rockets across the northern border into Saudi territory. The Saudi attacks marked a big escalation of the Yemen crisis, in which the Shia Houthis, who are backed by Iran, are fighting to oust the country’s president, Abd Rabbuh Hadi, who is backed by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies. Oil prices rose as much as 6 per cent on Thursday in response to the strikes, though they later fell back […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Rallies After Saudi Campaign Escalates Crisis in Yemen

ENLARGE Oil prices vaulted to their biggest gains in more than a month after Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a military campaign in neighboring Yemen, adding to concerns about the security of crude supplies in a region already fraught with tensions. The U.S. oil benchmark rose for the fifth straight session, surpassing $50 a barrel following the start of airstrikes to defend Yemen’s existing government against Iranian-backed rebels . While there were no immediate signs of any oil-supply disruption, the intervention by Saudi Arabia, the world’s No. 1 crude-oil exporter, stoked fears of a wider conflict among the biggest powers in the oil-rich region. Yemen itself produces a small amount of oil, but the country lies at the heart of some of the most important energy routes, with 7% of global oil maritime trade passing by its coast, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates. Many traders and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil leaps 5 percent, most in a month, on air strikes in Yemen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil jumped about 5 percent on Thursday, the biggest daily gain in a month, as air strikes in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies sparked fears that escalation of the Middle East battle could disrupt world crude supplies. The Saudi military operation against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have driven Yemen’s president from the capital Sanaa, has not affected oil facilities of major Gulf producers. But fears the conflict could spread and disrupt Middle East shipments powered benchmark Brent oil to near $60 a barrel, in its biggest daily gain since Feb. 25. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude soared above $50, approaching 2015 highs. Some analysts said the chance of an all-out proxy war between the Saudis and Iran looked remote. They attributed some of Thursday’s rally in oil to short covering after steep losses in early March, and said gains […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Prices Retreat After Larger-than-Expected Addition to Stockpiles

Dow Jones Newswires By Timothy Puko Natural gas slipped to its lowest closing price in almost seven weeks after stockpiles grew for the first time this year and beyond market expectations. Natural gas for April delivery settled down 5.1 cents, or 1.9%, at $2.672 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It is down in five of the past six sessions and closed at its lowest point since Feb. 9. The more actively traded May contract fell 5.2 cents, or 1.9%, at $2.688/mmBtu. April options expired at the end of Thursday’s trading and the April futures contract expires at the end of Friday’s trading. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said storage levels grew by 12 billion cubic feet in the week ended March 20. That is 2 bcf more than the 10-bcf consensus average of 19 forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The EIA […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Fears That Iran Will ‘Flood’ the Oil Market Exaggerated

Fears That Iran Will ‘Flood’ the Oil Market Exaggerated thumbnail Oil industry experts say it is unlikely that Iran will flood the market with oil if sanctions are lifted as a result of Iranian nuclear talks, quelling fears that the talks would spook the markets. Negotiations between Iran and the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China and Germany – the so-called P5+1 group – reconvene this week, with the aim of curtailing Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, in exchange for the lifting of crippling international sanctions. Iran already has large amounts of oil in storage which have been extracted, say experts. Although it is a state secret exactly how much oil Iran has stored, analysts predict it could be as much as 37 million barrels. There have been reports that an injection of hundreds of thousands of barrels a day into the oil market, which is already struggling with oversupply, could […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple